Dreaming about
cards

A card game mixes two things people find hard to tell apart in life, luck and skill. You don't choose your hand, but you choose how to play it, and you keep it hidden from everyone else at the table. Dreaming about cards is usually about that mix, a situation you feel dealt into, a risk you're weighing, or a secret you're holding close.

English is full of card language, and much of it fits dreams directly, from the hand you're dealt to a card up your sleeve and laying your cards on the table. The kind of cards matters too. A poker night, a tarot spread and a magician's trick are three very different dreams.

What dreaming about cards means

Cards give you most of their readings through the phrases people already use about them.

The hand you've been dealt

Nobody picks their own cards, and a dream of staring at a bad hand is often about circumstances you didn't choose, a health problem, a family situation, a tough job market. A good hand is the opposite, a sense that things are going your way. In both cases the dream turns on what you did next.

Strategy and risk

Card players bluff, bet and fold. A dream where you're deep in a game, calculating every move, is often about something you're handling tactically, like a negotiation, a relationship where you're careful what you show, or a gamble at work. Going "all in" is staking everything, and dreaming of it often comes before a big decision, close to what gambling dreams are about.

What you're hiding

Holding your cards close to your chest is keeping your plans to yourself. If you were hiding your hand, or afraid someone would see it, the dream may be about a secret, or about not trusting the people around you. Laying your cards on the table is the opposite, being honest at last, and a dream of it can come when you're ready to say what you really want.

Dreaming about winning at cards

Winning a hand is a dream of confidence, of feeling clever and lucky at once. It often follows a success, or comes just before you take a chance. If you won on luck alone, the dream may be about a good turn you don't quite feel you earned.

Dreaming about losing at cards

Losing, especially losing big, is about a risk you fear will go wrong, or one that already has. If you kept playing after you knew you were losing, the dream may be about a situation you should have left by now, a job, a relationship or a bet you've put too much into to walk away from.

Dreaming about a house of cards

A house of cards is something built with care that one breath can bring down. Dreaming of one is about fragility, a plan, a reputation or a story that rests on too little. If it fell, the dream may be about the fear of collapse, or about relief that the pretending is finally over.

Dreaming about tarot cards

Tarot cards in a dream are usually about wanting to know what's ahead, often during a decision whose end you can't see. The cards can't tell you, and neither can the dream (here is what science says about dreams and the future), but the card you drew is worth looking at for what it meant to you. People who read tarot dream of it the way anyone dreams of their hobby.

Dreaming about cheating at cards

An ace up your sleeve, a marked deck, a stacked hand: cheating is getting an edge you don't trust yourself to win fairly. If you were the cheat, the dream may be about guilt, or about corners you've been cutting. If someone was cheating you, it's about suspicion, the feeling that the deck is stacked against you.

Dreaming about cards according to Jung and Freud

Jung: the joker and the poker face

The joker belongs to the figure Jung called the trickster, the clown and shape-shifter who upsets the order of things.^[1] A joker turning up in your hand, wild and impossible to predict, can be the trickster in you, or in someone close to you, about to change the game. A magician doing card tricks is the same figure in a top hat. The card table also has its own version of the persona, the mask Jung said we wear for other people,^[1] and it's called a poker face. If yours slipped in the dream, that's the mask failing in front of the table.

Freud: the court cards and the winning hand

The face cards in a deck are kings and queens, and in Freud's reading royal couples in dreams usually stand for the dreamer's mother and father.^[2] Read his way, a dream that turns on the king or queen of hearts can be a family story in disguise, about a parent's love or a parent's power. A winning hand suits his other main idea just as well, a wish dreamed as if it had already come true, with the odds taken out.

Questions to ask about your card dream

Every card dream has a table and players, so ask about both.

• What game were you playing, and with whom?
• Did you like your hand?
• Were you winning, losing, bluffing or cheating?
• Did anyone see your cards?
• Where in your life are you playing it safe, or taking a gamble?

Oniri wants to know about the game and the players before it offers a reading, since one hand of cards plays out differently at every table.